DURHAM, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–In anticipation of the retail launch of its unique Conscious™ Greens salad blends, Pairwise has announced a strategic partnership with national retail broker RSquared Fresh Solutions to bring the first CRISPR gene edited products in the U.S. to retail across the Western United States. The first product from Conscious Greens, a field-grown, baby leaf blend of colorful, flavorful purple and green leaves, launched into the foodservice channel in May. The RSquared Fresh Solutions partnership signals continued momentum as the products enter retail in the coming months.
Pairwise is a mission-driven, health-focused food and agriculture company that is transforming the way people eat with better fruits and vegetables. Pairwise’s partnership with RSquared Fresh Solutions, a division of Advantage Solutions, a Fortune 1000 sales, marketing, and technology company, will play a crucial role in retail sales and store coverage. RSquared Fresh Solutions boasts a wide network of grocery retailers nationwide and is recognized as the fastest growing produce-focused retail brokerage in the country. With their combined expertise and reach, the partnership is well-positioned to bring Conscious Greens to shoppers seeking innovative nutrient-dense options in the salad aisle.
Conscious Greens are now available in 20 states through a leading food service broadline distributor. Following its foodservice launch, Pairwise is now looking to the retail channel with two new 5oz. baby green blends, Purple Power and Green Zing.
“We are excited to partner with such a market leader in the retail distribution industry,” said Neil Merritt, Vice President of Sales at Pairwise. “The partnership will greatly enhance our retail presence from Denver to the Pacific coast.”
RSquared Fresh Solutions will support Conscious Foods in retail with high quality, in-store coverage and category management support, and its broad network creates opportunities for future expansion. Today, Conscious Greens are field-grown in California and Arizona with grower partners and are processed with a packer-shipper partner out of Santa Maria, Calif. for distribution coast-to-coast.
“There’s a lot of opportunity here,” Jeff Kyer, western U.S. representative for RSquared Fresh Solutions, said. “We can’t be more excited to leverage our network to ensure that the innovative products coming from Conscious Foods reach customers.”
Conscious Greens come from the same family of highly nutritious vegetables as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and kale, but have been developed to deliver a unique, fresh flavor experience through the use of CRISPR technology, so that consumers never have to choose between healthy and delicious. The result is a blend of purposefully nutritious, deliberately delicious leafy greens with up to double the nutrition of romaine.*
The two 5oz. baby greens blends provide versatile options for variety-seeking consumers, with Green Zing showcasing rich and complex buttery flavors, while Purple Power has an added pop of flavor and color that excites the senses. Pairwise is developing a complete portfolio of innovative fruits and vegetables for the North American market, with new varieties of greens, berries, and cherries underway.
Pairwise is committed to transparency and the process used to develop Conscious Foods products. More information can be found about Conscious Greens at www.consciousfoods.net. The technical details of how the greens were gene edited are available in the open access journal, Plants.
(*Nutrition defined as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Calcium, Vitamin B6, and Protein)
About Pairwise and Conscious Foods: Driven by the belief that healthy food should be consistently fresh, delicious, and convenient, Conscious Foods is a flagship brand under Pairwise, a mission-driven company that is building a healthier world through better fruits and vegetables. Pairwise brings together leaders in agriculture, technology, and consumer foods to harness the transformative potential of new genomics technologies to create innovative new products. Pairwise is working to develop new varieties of crops, and to partner with organizations that seek to drive innovation across the plant-based economy. Pairwise was founded by Chief Executive Officer Tom Adams and Chief Business Officer Haven Baker, with scientific co-founders J. Keith Joung, Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School; David Liu, Director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare and Vice-Chair of the Faculty at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT; and Feng Zhang, McGovern Investigator and a professorat MIT. For more information, visit https://www.pairwise.com. For more information on Conscious Foods, visit www.consciousfoods.net.
About RSquared Fresh Solutions: R² Fresh Solutions, formerly Advantage Fresh, was built by combining the best of the regional agencies that specialize in growing sales of fresh and store-perimeter products with the power of coast-to-coast retailer relationships and best-in-class in-store representation and merchandising. Our decentralized R² Fresh Solutions teams are immersed in local markets and supported by the scale and resources of a global provider of sales and marketing services to the consumer goods and retail industry. Our teams are category experts, representing national and regional brands spanning meat, seafood, deli, dairy, bakery and produce. We build each brand with strategies and tactics customized by product, by retailer, by market.
